


Wind in yer Sails

by txorakeriak



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-22
Updated: 2006-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/txorakeriak/pseuds/txorakeriak
Summary: Gibbs makes a shocking discovery and has to help an old shipmate.





	Wind in yer Sails

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-PotC1. Not intentionally slashy, but if you want to see it, you will.

It sounded, at first, like an easy task to accomplish.

"Cotton’s missing, Mr Gibbs," Captain Hargreaves said. "Go and find him. He cannot be far."

Gibbs nodded - obedient, as he had always been - and then, he ran. He had been running all night through the busy streets of Tortuga, eager to find his lost shipmate, but there had been no sign of him; neither in the taverns, nor in the brothels. It seemed as if the earth had completely swallowed him.

It was late. They would set sail in the early morning, and Gibbs wanted to be ready. Actually, he wanted nothing more than to go back to the ship and have a good sleep, but - of course - he reminded himself that there were more important things. He had to find Cotton. Where the hell was he?

A wench captured his arm, attempting to drag him toward a bordello, but he shrugged her off.  
Someone touched his pocket, and he smacked the hand away, giving its skinny, eagle-faced owner a good punch in the face.

_God, Cotton, where are you?_

Gibbs didn’t even know how he felt when he eventually found Cotton - lying in his own blood, under a heap of filthy rags, his face a mess of bruises and cuts - but he was certain that his heart missed a beat.

 _Can’t be him,_ was the first thing Gibbs thought, though his heart told him otherwise. He’d know that figure anywhere.

Hesitantly, he bowed over Cotton’s bruised body and stretched out a hand to touch him. He was still warm. He was still breathing. _Oh, thank God._

Gibbs sighed in relief.

Quickly, he grabbed Cotton and carried him back to the ship.

When they arrived, the _Pegasus_ ’ deck - lit by the light of the full moon – was completely deserted. Even the Middle Watch was not at their posts. There was no sign of the captain either. Gibbs didn’t care. He stumbled below decks, Cotton still on his shoulders. The poor devil needed attention, else he would bleed to death.

Carefully, Gibbs dropped his shipmate onto the surgeon’s desk. Woodsworth wasn’t there, of course he wasn’t. He was probably in a drunken stupor in the galley, or perhaps the orlop deck. His bag was there, however, along with his instruments.

Also, near to the table, there was a bucket of cold seawater - black - containing more maggots than Gibbs could count. Seizing a dirty towel, he sank it into the bucket, wringing out the blood, before wiping Cotton’s face. The fellow was lucky to have passed out. He’d probably scream out his lungs, and wake up the whole damn ship.

Cotton was in a terrible state. His lips were torn, and there were deep wounds at both sides of his mouth. It seemed that they had forced open his mouth, and - if need be - had been willing to cut their way in. Bruises and gashes covered his cheeks and forehead, and his left ear was a bloody mess. What the hell had they done to him, and what had he done to deserve it?

Gibbs swallowed, wiping his own sweaty forehead with the now blood-soaked towel. _Rum first, or afterwards?_ Should he drink some himself to stop his ruddy hands from shaking?

He had never stitched up anyone – there had never been any need for it. He wouldn’t admit to that to anyone, of course, but he realized it now.

Navy surgeons weren’t the best; incapable of doing much beyond stitching up wounds or removing limbs. Yet, that had been enough on the ships Gibbs had served aboard before his desertion. Afterwards, he had turned to piracy, and so knew that experienced captains often kept a sharp eye when attacking other ships, especially merchants or other pirates. They knew what to do to bring good surgeons aboard.

Unfortunately, Hargreaves wasn’t that sort of pirate. Beyond his fair share of the loot, little was of interest to him. He cared enough for his men to keep them in good spirits because his position depended on them, but he didn’t care for prisoners, and neither did he care to expand his crew nor recruit able-bodied men.

Almost without realizing it, Gibbs found himself staring into the flame of the oil lamp on the table next to him, breathing deeply to calm himself down. His hands were still shaking, but - when he looked away from the light again - he didn’t worry about them anymore.

Sighing, Gibbs fished out a needle and some string from the bag, and pulled the string through the needle hole with considerable effort. Had anyone told him that he would later have to stitch up someone’s face, he would not have drunk so much earlier. He worried about the mistakes he might make, about killing poor Cotton with his shaking hands, but he discarded the thoughts. The man would be done for anyway, if he didn’t do anything right now. He had nothing to lose.

Slowly, he moved his hand towards Cotton’s face and pulled the torn skin together, before making his first stitch.

It was clearly no work of art, but it held firm and it would heal. There was a jar of salve in Woodsworth’s bag, the word "stitches" was written upon it, in an almost unreadable scrawl. He kept his stuff in relative order, at least.

Stuffing the jar into his pocket, Gibbs lifted Cotton upon his shoulders again, and took a quick detour to the galley to procure some rum. Cotton couldn’t stay as he was, passed out. He’d be dead in the morning. He needed to wake up, come back to the world of the living.

There was still light in the small galley, but no one was awake. Pirates lay piled on the floor - passed out from too much drink and laughter - surrounded by broken bottles, spit, and a stench of stale, mouldy stew, sweat, vomit and piss. Even Capshaw, the cook, was slouched in his chair, fast asleep, snoring like a pig.

Shore leave. It was always like that when the crew returned; something else Hargreaves didn’t care about. Gibbs had never felt as if he belonged to the crew, but they had accepted him and Cotton, which had been more than he hoped for. He needed the money to live for another couple of months, another couple of years if he was lucky.

Gibbs lifted an intact bottle of rum from the grip of one of the sleeping pirates, and then carried Cotton to his hammock.

Gibbs contemplated waking Cotton with a slap but - remembering the stitches - soon changed his mind. Maybe cold water? Though Gibbs didn’t want to go that far to fetch fresh water, nor did he want to soak Cotton’s hammock with the hideous brew in the surgeon’s bucket. He could wake him with the rum. Most of it would spill, but the quality was so poor that it wasn’t worth a tear.

Gibbs heaved Cotton into his hammock and - unconsciously - moved his hand to the man’s face, stroking softly, carefully, over the stitched wounds. 

_Poor old Cotton._

When Cotton suddenly moved - trying to open his eyes - he made a soft, incoherent sound, and blood spilled from his mouth. 

"Don’t speak now. Don’t speak." Gibbs took the jar of salve from his pocket. "It’s all right," he said, over and over again, while carefully spreading the thick liquid over the stitched wounds.

Cotton made another muffled sound, opening his mouth far enough for Gibbs to see into it.

The jar of salve dropped out of his hands and onto the hard wood deck, littering it with porcelain shards.

_Mary, Mother of God._

The bastards had cut out his tongue.

_No, anything but that._

Memories came to mind, memories of Cotton telling him stories, making jokes. He had always been a good-humoured guy, always ready to lift the spirits of those around him. There wasn’t a bad thing one could say of him. He spoke in riddles sometimes, but that was how he was, his disposition.

The thought that he would never be able to speak again - that the jokes he still had in him were meant to stay there - sent tears to Gibbs’ eyes.

It was unfair.

After giving Cotton some rum to help with the pain, and securing a piece of his own shirt to stem the bleeding inside his mouth, Gibbs climbed into his own hammock and regarded his shipmate through a veil of tears. He would not give up now; whatever they had done to him, they would pay for it.

Cotton was snoring at his side long before he - himself - closed his eyes.


End file.
